Sam Murphy is a first year student in Knockbeg College. His favourite
subject is science. He loves experiments and explosions. Sam didn’t
always like science. It wasn’t until he met Mr. Doherty at
the open day that he changed his mind. Mr. Doherty was a kind, funny
teacher. He was always in good humour. He was a short, thin man,
who always wore a hat for a reason Sam and his classmates never knew.
The children used to call him Dockers.
When Sam first started science in school his little sister Sarah
used to beg him to show her all his experiments. Ten year old Sarah
had
long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was in 4th class in Leighlinbridge
N.S. One day when Sarah was bored she decided to do an experiment of
her own. She gathered together sodium chloride, citric acid and an
unusual looking bottle filled with a strange fluid from Sam’s
collection. Their cat, Fluffy, was sitting above the table beside Sam’s
moonstones, which he received as a reward from his teacher.

All of a
sudden Sam’s alarm clock buzzed. Fluffy sprang from
the shelf onto the bed, knocking one of the moonstones as she went.
The stone landed in the mixture of chemicals Sarah had prepared. The
mixture started to bubble. There was a sudden puff of smoke and the
stone flew out into Sarah’s hand. It was hot, very hot. It had
also turned a very bright blue colour.
Sarah started to panic. Quickly she hid all the evidence as best as
she could. She ran into her room and put the stone under her pillow,
hoping that Sam wouldn’t notice it was missing. Suddenly she
heard Sam’s voice downstairs. She started to think about what
she might tell him. However she didn’t have any need to worry.
Sam was in a very good mood. He had a letter in his hand. It said that
Sam’s class would be going on a field trip to Dunsink Observatory
on Thursday night. Mr. Doherty had organised it.

Ever since the explosion
with the moonstone, things had been more than a little strange for
Sarah. She was having trouble sleeping and kept
having the same dream every night. It was like someone was trying to
call her from very far away. She kept seeing a short, thin alien in
a transit van, laughing hysterically. Every night the dream seemed
to get stronger, but never strong enough to hear what was being said.
UNTIL NOW!!

It was Thursday night. Sam and his classmates were on their
way to Dunsink Observatory with Mr. Doherty, in the school’s
beat-up transit van. Conditions were perfect. Suddenly there was a
loud bang.
It felt like the van had hit a brick wall. In fact, when Sam looked
out the window he realised there was no road either. The van was floating
upwards, pulled from the road by an invisible force.

That was when Sarah
opened her eyes. The stone was glowing bright blue and in her mind
she clearly heard screaming. She heard a deep gravelly
voice saying “Mwuhahahaha, finally my plan is in action.” She
took the moonstone in her hand and started shaking it to make it stop.
Next thing she knew she was sitting next to Sam in the transit van
with the moonstone in her hand.
She felt something at her feet. It was a book. During the crash the
contents of Mr. Doherty’s briefcase had spilled out over the
floor of the van. The book was entitled ‘Personal Diary; World
Domination.’ Sarah was curious. She opened it and read the first
page. Sarah discovered what Docker’s plan was and knew she had
to get help immediately. She grabbed the stone and it transported her
back to Earth.

When Sarah got back home she tried to tell everyone what
she had seen, but no-one would believe her. They told her that she
must have been
dreaming. Sarah decided that she would have to do it herself. She jumped
onto her bicycle and cycled as fast as she could to Docker’s
Lab in Knockbeg College. Sarah mixed together all the chemicals that
she found. The mixture glowed green and smelt of rotten eggs. She poured
it into a hipflask.
She grabbed onto the stone and it transported her back to the van.
She decided
to pretend that she was on Docker’s side, that his plan was great, that
it would work. She offered him a drink from the flask. No-one else could hear
or see her. Docker drank a small bit and immediately froze. Sarah could see his
body being drawn towards the stone. With a loud thunder crackle, he was trapped
within the blue stone. His spell had been broken and the van landed safely back
on Earth.